Regret
by quotelation
Summary: A couple of speculative tags to 10.12 "Shiva." Tony and Ziva spend a difficult night at his apartment. Later, Ziva tries to speak to Director Vance.
1. Chapter 1

_So, I wrote this last night and saved the editing for today, and then when I woke up today the 30-second promo showed up and showed Ziva sleeping solo in Tony's twin bed, which sort of renders this story impossible. (This seems to be a bit of a trend lately with my tags.) I decided to publish this anyway. After all, I don't know what we'll end up getting in the episode between Tony and Ziva, but it's still fun to bounce around scenarios, however unlikely!_

_Disclaimer: Not mine._

* * *

Gibbs wants her babysat, and while Tony agrees that that's a necessary step, he's not so thrilled about being the one who gets the job. Partly, it seems sad that the first time he has his friend to his apartment is under such unfortunate circumstances. Partly, it's that babysitting Ziva isn't actually a very pleasant job. She resents it. Strongly.

It's 2300, which means she's been there for a little over seven hours, and she hasn't done much or shown much emotion. She spent the time looking around and staring at things, mainly. She brushed her hands over the piano keys. She paced. She got a glass of water, drank two sips of it, and then washed the glass. She ignored most of his efforts to make conversation and didn't respond when he tried to draw her out, or when he let her know that he was there when she was ready to talk. He reminded her that he absolutely would not be letting her leave when he caught her looking at the window a little too long—not _out _the window, but at the window itself, her gaze carefully evaluating the sash and the sill. She did have some words for him after that. There weren't many of them, and they weren't very agreeable.

He can't be upset with her, but he really wishes this whole thing were going better.

At 11:15, she asks if he has blankets.

"I'll take the couch," he tells her.

"Don't be ridiculous." She stands. "This is not the first time we've shared a bed."

"Just like Paris," he mutters into his own water glass.

He _thinks _her mouth twitches in a promising way when he says that, but he can't be completely sure.

His bed is new; he impulsively followed his father's suggestion and bought a bed big enough for two people this time, thinking the entire time that he was probably making a huge mistake. In light of the current situation in his apartment, though, it's the most practical suggestion his father has ever made. The newness still feels funny. It looks so big in his bedroom. But he's a little in love with the crisp new sheets he picked out, and he hopes that if Ziva's not going to talk to him, that she at least can enjoy his high thread count choice.

It feels very odd to crawl into bed next to her and click off the light. He's not really used to another person's breathing mixing with the sounds of his apartment.

* * *

She rolls to her side and stays very still in her half of the bed. "You need a rug in here," she says just when he opens his mouth to wish her a good night.

"Come again?"

"A rug. So your feet aren't so cold in the mornings."

It's silent for a minute.

"Okay."

"Unless your feet don't get cold in the mornings?"

She should've just kept her mouth shut. She is so tired, and so unwilling to close her eyes, and she has no idea why she's rambling about his decorating choices and his feet.

Well, that's not strictly true. Somewhere underneath the layers of conflicting emotions she's been trying to keep tamped down lies a vague feeling that perhaps Tony doesn't deserve to have her cluttering his neat apartment with oppressive silences. Just like she's been doing all afternoon.

She's angry with the world, but she's not angry with him. And she's counting on him knowing her well enough to know that, because at the moment, a pointless comment about rugs is the most generous overture she is able to make.

"I guess they do," he says eventually. She hears his head shift on his pillow. He's not really sure what he's supposed to be doing with this conversation, she can tell. "Do yours?"

She is simply too tired for this.

She doesn't answer him.

Her eyes stay open, staring at the dark, and he sighs.

* * *

She's very good at keeping herself still and silent, and if he'd been asleep, he might not have noticed her three a.m. breakdown. But he's lying awake, feeling acutely her presence on his right and his gun's presence to his left, and he suddenly realizes that something is not right. The mattress quivers when she can't quite stifle the way her body shakes, and he's rolling over on his side and reaching for her before his mouth can even activate.

She shakes his hand off her shoulder and pushes her fist against her mouth, biting down hard on her first knuckle.

"Ziva," he says, and she responds with a sort of half-choke, half-squeak, and he sits up, because that's it for him. He's been respecting her space all day, but jesus, it's three in the morning and she needs somebody and he doesn't care if he gets punched for being that person. He grabs the hand at her mouth, grips her shoulder, and pulls her toward him.

It's a silent struggle for a moment, so he's shocked when her muscles suddenly stop resisting him and she goes willingly—no, more than willingly; covers go flying as she clambers into his lap, and her hands clutch desperately at the back of his t-shirt. He can't think of any words that would be appropriate, so he just wraps his arms around her as tightly as he can and digs a hand into her hair and holds on. Her pajamas are damp with sweat and her tears are hot on his neck and his strong grip on her does nothing to quell the tremors running through her body. Rather, they seem to be travelling straight down to his own bones, making him feel more than a touch shaky himself.

He doesn't need to see her face to know it's screwed up in pain.

"Shh," he soothes. He stops himself from telling her that it's going to be okay just in time and searches for something less untrue. "It's just me," he says instead. "I'm right here."

Her sob sounds like it has the word "why" in it somewhere.

How can she even ask that? "We're all here for you."

Her chin digs painfully into his shoulder when she shakes her head.

"Yes—"

"Why did it have to _be_ like this?" she chokes out.

He hopes he isn't hurting her, because he knows he squeezes her harder with every word she says. His jaw feels tight, and he has no response.

"My _father_."

"I know."

"No, you don't."

It's a fair enough point. Nobody's lost quite as much as Ziva has. Still, it makes his eyes burn. He shuts them.

"You could tell me."

She sobs so hard for a moment that she hiccups, and he wonders if that means no. Then slowly, the storm begins to slack off. Her breathing is shuddery, but the tears seem to have abated.

"It's my fault," she says, hoarse.

"It's not your fault."

She lets go of him to shove at his shoulders, but she makes no real effort to get away, and almost immediately her hands creep back up to cling to the neck of his shirt.

"Two children are now motherless and a good man is a widower and I am—I am the only one left, and for _what_, Tony, for what cause? What is the reason? _What can I do?_"

The words run together and catch in strange places and it's not easy to understand her, although he does.

Unfortunately, that doesn't mean he has an answer.

"I don't know." He strokes the back of her head with his thumb. "I'm sorry, Ziva."

And he is. He's sorry for the whole convoluted mess of it. He's sorry for her and for Vance and for the rest of the team, and he's sorry for being scared of how things at the agency might change now, and he's sorry for Vance's children, and he's sorry that he knows personally how awful it is to lose your mother before you're even close to driving age. He's sorry that Ziva hasn't smiled since she left the bullpen on Friday. He's sorry that he wasn't sure about having her here. He's sorry that her father was kind of a bad guy and kind of a good guy and completely confusing. He's sorry that he can't help more, and that she's not easier to help. And while he's not exactly sorry that she's leaning on him right now, he's sorry that she needs to.

Rule Number Six covers most apologies, but it does not cover the feeling that warrants them. For over an hour, Tony sits in the middle of his big bed, holds his partner, and feels almost sinfully regretful.

* * *

She falls asleep, exhausted, before he does, and she doesn't wake up when he shifts his legs so she's not cutting off his circulation and inches them back so he can lean against his headboard. It's still new enough to smell of varnish. It'll probably give him a headache by morning.

_Maybe a little like Paris_, he thinks, surveying the way Ziva remains cuddled into him in her sleep_._

He remembers how peppy and lighthearted he felt the morning they woke up tangled together in Paris, and how willing she had been to chuckle and humor him.

_And then again, _he thinks, listening to her breathe,_ it's nothing like Paris at all._

* * *

_I hope you're all as excited for "Shiva" as I am! Thanks for reading!_


	2. Chapter 2

_Now I'm just playing. Also, this hasn't really much to do with the first chapter besides the fact that it's speculative for the same episode. Thought I might as well keep them together. First part was about Tony and Ziva and mostly from Tony's viewpoint; this is about Vance and Ziva and it's from Vance's viewpoint._

_Disclaimer: Not mine._

* * *

The morning after Jackie's funeral service was sunny, and the light in Leon's office hurt his eyes.

He sat down heavily at his desk.

His leave of absence—the length of which was currently undetermined, but at least a month—had officially started. He was supposed to be coming to grips with the idea of living without his wife, grieving, and taking care of his children. None of which seemed very plausible as Leon looked blankly around his office.

Jerome Craig, NCIS's deputy director, had been in town since Saturday. At this very moment, he was standing with Gibbs in MTAC, conferencing with Mossad's freshly sworn-in director, a hotshot Leon couldn't remember ever meeting.

He didn't like it.

But that didn't matter, he reminded himself. He was supposed to be packing up some things, getting some final paperwork together, and locking away anything he'd prefer Craig not see.

Except that he had been sitting in this chair for five minutes, and during that time, paralysis seemed to have set in. He tried, but couldn't manage to put himself back on the autopilot that had been running him since he left the emergency room late Friday night. He stuck to the chair, and his eyes stuck to the photographic smiles of his wife and children in the portrait gracing his desk. Jackie had been bugging him about getting a new one taken this spring ("with you in it, too, baby; don't think you're getting out of it") to do their rapidly growing children justice. He thought he should probably see about getting one done of the kids at least. She'd like that.

It struck him suddenly that he had no idea how to make that happen without her. Who did the Vance family photos? Who took care of the framing? Who did they call to fix the plumbing or repaint a bullet-spattered wall? He worked long weeks and she did all that. He wasn't sure where she even kept those numbers, or how they were organized.

He wasn't sure if he would be emotionally able to go through her things and find that sort of information anytime soon, either.

His intercom buzzed.

"Special Agent David to see you, sir."

Before he could tell his secretary that he'd really rather be left alone, the door opened and Ziva stepped in, closing the door quietly behind her.

"Ziva."

A surprised look flashed across her face—Leon was usually more formal with his agents—but it was almost immediately replaced by a look of apology. She stopped some six feet from his desk, an awkward distance. "I'm sorry to barge in on you," she began. "I'm sure I'm the last person you want to speak to at the moment."

She stopped and bowed her head, as though waiting for him to have something to say about that.

He didn't think there was anything _to_ say. Last time he'd seen Ziva, she had thrown down her napkin and stormed out of his dining room—Gibbs had since explained the reason for that to him, but it had still made for an uncomfortable moment before the horrible, horrible one, and he didn't want to replay it in his mind consciously when the entire scene had been running on repeat, unbidden, behind his eyelids since Friday.

"Do you need something?" he asked tiredly.

"I wanted to express my condolences." She raised her head and caught his eyes—on accident, perhaps, but the way she held them was purposeful. "Jackie was a wonderful woman."

He knew he should probably offer her his condolences, as well, but his tongue was thick and heavy in his mouth and he didn't care quite enough anymore about his old friend Eli to try and unstick it.

After an uncomfortable moment of syrupy silence, though, he tried after all.

"Didn't see you at the funeral." It was absolutely the last thing he meant to say, and he barely recognized the tone of his own voice saying it.

Because his eyes were still on her face, he caught the way her composure slipped for a fraction of a second. He noted detachedly the speed with which she recovered, and the agent in him was impressed with the clarity and evenness of her voice when she spoke.

"I did not think my presence would be appropriate." Her eyes fell to one of the family pictures behind him. "My father has been the cause of much pain here recently. I did not wish to cause you more."

Eli kept family pictures behind his desk in his office, too. Leon remembered seeing them only a few century-like years ago.

"I don't think Jackie would've minded," he heard himself say.

The woman in front of him smiled faintly.

"But funeral services are not for the dead. They are meant to bring solace to the living."

He actually cracked a tiny smile of his own. "Sounds like something Dr. Mallard would say."

"Ducky is a very wise man."

Ducky had pressed his director's hand the morning before with so much compassion that Leon had been forced to turn away to keep his already-tenuous grip on his composure. It had been nearly as painful as repeatedly catching Gibbs's stricken, empathetic eyes following him before and after the service.

"Yeah."

Silence fell again, less thick this time, but still uncomfortable.

Ziva glanced briefly at the door and pressed her lips together.

Jackie would be disappointed at the lack of grace he was showing this hurt young woman. She wasn't a big fan of Eli's ("that man can't blow his nose without causing you trouble," she had said once), but she liked Ziva. _Had_ liked Ziva, that is. When she was alive to pass that sort of judgment.

"Thank you," he tried.

Again, she looked very slightly surprised. And she still didn't leave.

"Was there anything else?" he asked after a moment, feeling distinctly unequipped to speak to her any longer.

"Yes." She clasped her right hand tightly around her left wrist and took a step forward. "I, ah—" she cleared her throat, then raised her chin and once again met his eyes. "I wish for you to know that…I will understand if you would like me to tender my resignation."

He stared at her. She tightened her mouth and stood very straight.

"Are you crazy?"

"I have not yet had my psych evaluation."

He had to have one of those, too. Bureaucracy was a bitch, even when you were part of it.

"It's an expression." He shook his head and found his tongue suddenly looser than it had been since Friday. "You listen to me. The one thing I _don't _need right now is any of my best agents copping out. I don't wanna hear about your guilt. I don't want hear about your issues with Eli. And I certainly don't want to lose whatever connection this agency is able to salvage with Mossad by getting rid of an agent with valuable ties to Israel!"

Her face was stone.

He had raised himself half out of his chair as his voice had escalated to a shout, and now he sank back slowly and dragged a hand over his face. He rested his chin on clasped fists. His daughter grinned at him from the photograph. At least she still has a father, he thought; he knew from experience how it felt to have no family at all. Thank god he still had Kayla and Jared. Thank god they hadn't been there.

Ziva still looked at him. She'd been there. And now she was the one with no family at all.

"I'm sorry," he told her. "I'm sorry. Please, don't offer me your resignation."

Her stony expression remained.

"We need you here," he added. "Your team needs you."

The stone cracked. Ziva breathed in sharply and closed her eyes, and a dimple quivered in her chin. He realized just how much it must've cost her to offer up her job as a sacrifice to his pain.

He closed his own eyes, and the scene from Friday night began to play, starting with Ziva tossing down that damn napkin.

"Thank you." Her whisper drew him back to his office.

He forbade himself from letting the tears filling his eyes spill over, nodding sharply.

The door slammed open and Gibbs rushed inside, an expression Leon had never seen before on his face.

Ziva started. "Gibbs—"

He grabbed her arm hard and pulled her with him as he approached the desk.

"I don't know what's going on here, but one thing I do know? You are both emotionally compromised right now. That means that now is not the time to make rash decisions. And that goes for both of you."

Gibbs wasn't loud, but his face was intense as he loomed, frowning, over Leon and then focused a glare at Ziva.

"Do you understand me? Nobody is quitting, and nobody is getting fired." The statement hung in the air with a note of finality.

Sometimes Leon had the urge to screw with Gibbs, just to assert his authority over an organization that people often seemed to see as Gibbs's property.

Now was not one of those times. He felt downright grateful for Gibbs's fierce control over this situation. Somebody had to keep things, including the deputy director—actually, especially the deputy director—on their toes and running properly around here, and Gibbs was more than capable.

"After all the strings I pulled to convert David from a Mossad liaison officer to an American Special Agent," Leon said mildly, "do you really think I'd let her leave the agency?"

Gibbs narrowed his eyes and gave him a penetrating look.

"How did you know I was up here?" Ziva asked him.

"McGee."

Leon could picture the scene: Gibbs realizing that Ziva was in the building but not in the bullpen, McGee providing information he hadn't yet put into context, Gibbs making the connections and bolting up the stairs, McGee realizing what was going on and staring after Gibbs in horror. DiNozzo couldn't've been there, or he'd have charged in on Gibbs's heels.

They cared about each other, this team. And he'd be damned if he hadn't come to care about them, too.

He shouldn't think such thoughts. They made the tears threaten to greet his cheeks again, and he couldn't have that.

"I have things to attend to," he said abruptly.

"Okay," Gibbs said, "just so we're clear." His hand finally dropped from Ziva's arm to her hand, which he squeezed tightly before heading for the exit.

Leon watched her follow him. That hand squeeze meant Gibbs wasn't done having this conversation with Ziva; he was sure of it. But it would have to wait just a moment.

"Ziva," he called as Gibbs slipped through the door, stopping her before she left the room. She turned back.

"Get lost for a while."

An expression close to panic fluttered over her face, and he hastened to explain. "I mean you should take some time. Take a vacation. Get away. Hell, take DiNozzo, if that helps."

Her eyebrows snapped together. "For…protection? Do you really think that's necessary?"

He shocked himself by actually smiling. "It's a _joke_, David."

It wasn't a joke she got, apparently, if her confused expression was any indication.

"It's just…Jackie used to enjoy speculating about the two of you once in a while."

Her face cleared and she gave a weak approximation of a chuckle. "Oh. Yes. I mean, _no_, but…I believe my father had similar speculations."

He refrained from telling her that the entire building had such speculations.

"I'm sorry about your father," he told her as she reached for the door handle.

She looked back and thanked him, and they shared a wry look—neither of them were the type of person to appreciate condolences, but they both understood the need to keep up appearances.

Ziva shut the door quietly behind herself again, and Leon put his palms flat on his desk and took a moment to breathe.

Somehow he felt much less paralyzed than he had before.

* * *

_I unabashedly love Vance. Thanks for reading!_


End file.
